


What Can I Say? I'm Survivin'

by escape_thefuture



Category: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Eurovision, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Post Movie, They have HISTORY, not really but kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:20:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28921962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escape_thefuture/pseuds/escape_thefuture
Summary: Alexander goes to Greece like Mita suggested. Kevin Swain never rests.
Relationships: Alexander Lemtov/Kevin Swain
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	What Can I Say? I'm Survivin'

**Author's Note:**

> Well! This is my first fic on ao3 for the fifth time? Every year or so I start to hate everything I post and delete them all. Here's to 2021, hoping it'll stick this time :)
> 
> Title from "Survivin" by Bastille

Greece is as breathtaking as Mita said it would be. In their limo on the way to her home in Symi—not a castle like the many he owns, mind, but perhaps better for it—she clipped whispers of her favorite beaches lined with water as blue as his eyes and streets smelling so strongly of mint and garlic that you had to stop for a bite of everything.

The setting sun casts an ethereal glow over sloping rows of houses, catching the orange between cobblestones, and Alexander’s lungs still feel stuck on the same inhale they were walking off the jet.

Mita’s driver opens the door for them, and once he stumbles out she loops their arms together and pulls him toward a large mansion surrounded by columns and ornate pools of crystal water. They pop open a bottle of some god-awful wine (“you Russians and your reds, honestly”) and drink and drink and drink until the moonlight casts shadows across Mita’s tile. She plays delicately with his hair until he offers, really begs, to braid her’s.

“I forgot how gentle you are about this. My mamá always yanked so hard my eyes would pop out of my head.” Mita taps a little something, maybe Rihana, on her arm. 

“You are lucky to have me.” His accent spills out heavily after all the wine.

Her hair is soft like Sirgrit’s, smooth as her skin, and Alexander ponders how he ever got so caught up in all that Icelandic nonsense. Sigrit was very beautiful, but nothing about her lit up any part of him anymore than Mita, who's practically family. He tried to make her the one, just as he’s done with many predecessors, but she felt more like a sister than a lover; he only refused to see it that way. In the playful scenarios of his mind, he thinks how Lars was not his type at all, but if he'd had to sleep with one of them, the answer would be unfortunately obvious. 

Why he does this to himself so repeatedly and endlessly, there’s no saying. Every woman he’s tried to woo either catches on or wants what he’s tried and cannot stand with a female body. It always ends in tears: the woman he led on, or him, alone in a giant castle, after he’s done distracting himself with dreams of normalcy.

Drinking always makes him especially susceptible to his own thoughts, and now is no different. A little stinging in the corner of his eyes is suddenly creeping up. Alexander tries desperately to push everything down for a little longer. There is great fun to be had while he is here. But wading through his murky emotions is near impossible when everything’s already so hazy. 

Up is down and down is up, and there are eyes, eyes everywhere, watching. 

When Mita turns around to see why he’s stopped braiding, she wraps her arms around his shoulders and squeezes tight without so much as a noise. It’s good to dry tears into someone else’s jacket for once.

Alexander wakes up in a bed tucked against Mita’s sternum and feeling only marginally better than he looks in the mirror. To say nothing of tears tracks and dark circles, his hair is too out of control to even describe and his beard more overgrown than he’d realized. He hasn’t shaved since the night of his last performance, after all.

A maid or someone of Mita’s staff has already laid out all his essentials in the nearest bathroom, and he decides then and there that if he wants to stop feeling so pathetic he’ll have to look the part. He trades his trimmers in favor of a razor, going clean shaven for the first time in nearly a decade, and he only nicked himself once. His hair receives a similar trim so he can run his fingers through it, but it no longer fans out every which way like a spectacular mop.

Once he's done and looks more like a human and less like an advertisement for mid-life crises, Mita is still asleep. He believes it’s his bed and not hers they dozed in, but he certainly doesn’t mind if she stays there. She sleeps late for the whole week post-Eurovision.

Alexander doesn’t want to wake her, but he can’t stand wandering the house for however many hours until she’s up either, so he swipes a pair of sunglasses and a hat and goes exploring.

As advertised, Greece is lovely in the sunlight as well, although quite a bit warmer than he’s used to. Feeling the ground all uneven beneath his sandals and a breeze off the water seems a bit surreal. He’s lived and visited all over Europe, Greece is one of the few places he has no experience of on the continent, still it feels spectacularly right in a way Alexander hasn’t felt in years. There’s a free spirited atmosphere that coaxes him to do the same. The feeling of eyes always watching fades into background noise.

He wanders for a couple miles, watching boats sale in, tourists chatting outside shops, hearing chatter spill out of propped open restaurant doors and fill the streets with the music of people. He’s so entranced with it all and considering buying another house when a familiar form materializes at the next building over like a mirage.

Alexander’s believes it to be as much, because no way, no he did not. Is this really his life?

Kevin Swain struts towards him in sunglasses, a breezy white button-up with sleeves at three quarter and pale blue shorts with a pattern of red dots. He’s as beautiful as Alexander’s ever seen him.

“I don’t like you clean shaven, makes you look prissier than usual.”

Alexander smiles lopsidedly, taken back to his playful whispers from the Eurovision party. His face must show this a little too much as Kevin returns a salacious grin. Alexander sweats.

“What, you just happen to be in Greece now all fun in UK celebrating your sad little island defeat is over?”

Kevin shifts on his feet, not taking the bait. “It’s where you are.” He glances up nervously, like he expects an imaginary door to be slammed in his face.

It’s Alexander’s fault, really. He’s led him on more than any one woman and never discouraged Kevin’s advances. Resisting temptation is not his strong suit, and what temptation Kevin Swain is.

They had one whirlwind, drunken, orgasmic weekend of throwing caution to the wind during Eurovision 2016. It was the most fun he’s ever had in his life, going clubbing until the A.M.’s, stumbling home where he would belt out some charting pop-garbage and Kevin would slip him out of his printed blazer. Even the holes in memory are made up for in enduring rushes of euphoria, the physical and emotional kind. They’d lay in twisted sheets and watch the sunrise over Stockholm only to drift off and sleep until lunchtime.

But they weren’t careful, because it was Sweden and it felt safe. Kevin forgets sometimes that while England may be puttering along into an easy acceptance, Mother Russia has eyes in too many places. Alexander should have remembered. He should have been more responsible, but for once in his life he just gave in to the craving and got a taste of freedom, and it was heaven.

Kevin’s wearing his desperate eyes, the kind he puts on between conversations and on sidelines when he thinks Alexander can’t see him. His closed-off stance and hopeful look are enough. Why not taste liberation a second time?

They walk in a companionable silence for a while, close but not enough to brush shoulders. Kevin seems to feel the need to amend this and reaches out to try and take his hand. 

Alexander skids away, clutching his wrist. His eyes probably look terrified, just as he feels. The simple touch of his pinky sends a shot of adrenaline up his entire arm, and not the good kind. Kevin looks apologetic, skittish, maybe worrying that he's already ruined it all. But he could never ruin a thing.

They don’t hold hands. Alexander lets Kevin walk a little nearer than before.

There is nothing to tell, or so he says to Mita, walking in as the sun is just beginning it’s decent, tripping on glee. Mita’s eyes do not believe him, and that is okay. He is letting Kevin Swain in through the kitchen.

They do nothing explicit once they’ve stumbled up to his room, although he can tell Kevin would happily if he gave any indication he wanted it. Alexander is too folded in on himself after an emotional few weeks in Edinburgh for anything spicy, as Mita put it. Instead, they lay side-by-side, over the sheets and still fully dressed, and he lets Kevin intertwine their fingers this time. It is nice, to feel so close to someone. This is much more intimate than inhibitionless sexscapades.

For once, Alexander does not feel talkative. Kevin whispers funny little anecdotes and purrs, all stretching grins in his ear to fill the silence. It is gentle, peaceful.

Once the sun is to bed, they follow suit. Shoes kicked to the floor, shirts unbuttoned, until Alexander is laying wrapped up in Kevin Swains arms, with his arms reciprocating. Kevin takes no time at all to float off into a midnight world of what this could be. Alexander watches him at rest for a while.

It’s strange, to think of this person lying in another man’s embrace and the one that tried to seduce Sigrit into traveling the world with him. Perhaps they are the same, but perhaps it is okay if they are not. He’ll take a little more freedom if the world will finally give it.


End file.
